Beta Channel System Update resulted in black screen.

[YerDadD]

I updated to the latest Beta Channel update tonight and and did a system restart. Now when the system passes the GRUB menu and "boots" the SteamOS partition the system hangs on a black screen. (The same issue occurs when selecting the fallback boot option.)

My initial recovery attempts to fsck and btrfs check in single user mode have run against to the wall of "'partition' is mounted" and then "target is busy" when using umount.

If anyone has any initial clues, that would be great. Otherwise, I'll be getting stuck into it with a live image to attempt recovery tomorrow.

I'm not great with system recovery, so I'm not entirely sure where to go from here (if I collect some more details I will add to this issue.)

Updates:
-All partitions came up clean with fsck and btrfs check once in a live image.

-I was going to try to alter the update channel in the steamos.conf file to stable, only to find that that file does not exist in HoloISO. All searches for UpdateChannel in file contents while running a live image have failed.
If anyone is aware of where/how I can manually alter the update channel, I'd love to know!

[spartokos99]

Same issue here. Couldn't find any fix now, had to reinstall with the old 1.5 iso image and switched to stable channel for now..

[Jamblond]

Now when the system passes the GRUB menu and "boots" the SteamOS partition the system hangs on a black screen.

@YerDadD

In Steam Big Picture you can change the channel for your updates :

• Click the Steam menu -> System -> BETA PARTICIPATION -> OS Update Channel with Main
• Steam Client Update Channel with Steam Deck Stable instead of Steam Deck Beta.

@YerDadD & @nbartokos To fix black screen after GRUB you can follow these steps:

1. When you see the GRUB with SteamOS press the "E" key on your keyboard
2. Erase "quiet splash" and write "single" instead

3. Ctrl + X

4. Enter your root password
5. use the following command:

holoiso-disable-sessions

6. Reboot
7. Connect to your user account

[spartokos99]

Now when the system passes the GRUB menu and "boots" the SteamOS partition the system hangs on a black screen.

@YerDadD

In Steam Big Picture you can change the channel for your updates :

• Click the Steam menu -> System -> BETA PARTICIPATION -> OS Update Channel with Main[ ] Steam Client Update Channel with Steam Deck Stable instead of Steam Deck Beta.

@YerDadD & @nbartokos To fix black screen after GRUB you can follow these steps:

1. When you see the GRUB with SteamOS press the "E" key on your keyboard
2. Erase "quiet splash" and write "single" instead

3. Ctrl + X

4. Enter your root password
5. use the following command:

holoiso-disable-sessions

6. Reboot
7. Connect to your user account

Sadly didn't help. I tried a new install (beta-20240901), followed your steps by editing my grub config and 'holoiso-disable-sessions'. Then I updated to the newest beta.
After reboot, I can now see a mouse cursor. But not more. Even after waiting for 1+ hours, the only thing I see now is a cursor, no desktop. I can access cli.

[RSDNTWK]

Confirmed Black Screen on all beta versions post June 2024 using all kernel configs for Framework 16 Overkill Edition with Ryzen 9 7940HS/780M iGPU and RX 7700S dGPU.
Last working version holoiso_rel_snapshot20240603.0905.04-InstallerBuild-20240603104443-x86_64 using failover kernel config as main config causes the same issue as the betas.
Unable to update June release build using pacman due to package conflicts with holoiso/valve repo changes.

[amysteriousdude]

it also happens with the stable one, tried to go in backup mode using grub, still steamos-update command not found, like every steam/holoiso command isn't there

[RSDNTWK]

@Omarplayz233 There are no available updates on stable even though it says one is available as the download link was removed a while back. To fix the black screen bootup issues on both the stable and beta versions it's best to run the following commands from the terminal while booted in the fallback kernel itself:

steamos-readonly disable

wget https://cd2.holoiso.ru.eu.org/hwsupport/linux-lljy-6.10.PRJC-1-x86_64.pkg.tar.zst

sudo pacman -U linux-lljy-6.10.PRJC-1-x86_64.pkg.tar.zst

rm linux-lljy-6.10.PRJC-1-x86_64.pkg.tar.zst

steamos-readonly enable

Note: Kernel 6.10 is more stable and doesn't require having to fall back every time you boot as it prevents the black screen.

If prompted replace the kernel version

Once you relock the file system and reboot, holoiso should boot normally.

This is a temporary solution we've discovered and it is best not to use newer versions than either of the following:

Stable: 7/6/2024

https://cd2.holoiso.ru.eu.org/holoiso-installer/rel/holoiso_rel_snapshot20240603.0905.04-InstallerBuild-20240607121011-x86_64.iso

Beta: 28/9/2024 (Not advisable to use it however it is newer than the stable build)

https://cd2.holoiso.ru.eu.org/holoiso-installer/beta/holoiso-installer_snapshot20240901.1748.45_beta-20240928153932-x86_64.iso

If holoiso prompts you to update, DON'T UPDATE IT, Just ignore it as the whole install WILL break when doing so.

We hope our tireless testing helps people struggling to use it in the mean time.

[amysteriousdude]

@RSDNTWK

We hope our tireless testing helps people struggling to use it in the mean time.

we hope so, ill try out the fix later and see if it will fix the issue (ill lyal (let you all know) if that's a real fix)

it says one is available as the download link was removed a while back

they also deleted the other old versions, no wonder why 🤷‍♂ BUT they have to add an archive page/website JUST to download an old version

[amysteriousdude]

@RSDNTWK

basically, the ssd doesn't blink, even with ethernet plugged in, so I edited the initramfs fallback module to let me boot without quiet flag and the nologs flag on plymouth so i can see if smh while booting was wrong, booting seems to be fine, no errors, nothing there, B U T, that froze the blinking cursor, and the ssd seemed not blinking, so yeah, also I'm using an intel cpu with an iGPU that is also intel, also tried going on another tty terminal, still no luck, not even showing anything, I'll try and arch-chroot and see if it WOULD work

Note

I reinstalled holoiso, so yeah, it's just not working

Note

note again, even the chroot, tried wget, STILL THE S A M E I S S U E!!!

[amysteriousdude]

i think i found smh https://cd2.holoiso.ru.eu.org/holoiso-images/ (idk what i should pick and idk how do i install it, so idk)

[RSDNTWK]

@Omarplayz233 Seems like you ran into a similar issue we did initially on one of our other systems. To fix it follow @Jamblond's suggestion to disable the holoiso sessions temporarily and log in using the Plasma (x11) mode then update the kernel, that should allow you to access it properly. Most of our tests didn't require disabling the holoiso sessions as it was always able to boot in the failsafe kernel.

[amysteriousdude]

@RSDNTWK ima try that and see, ima reinstall again cuz i actually need to see what happens with that patch (but he didn't say the freezing thing, so ima try his fix and lyal)

[amysteriousdude]

@Omarplayz233 Seems like you ran into a similar issue we did initially on one of our other systems. To fix it follow @Jamblond's suggestion to disable the holoiso sessions temporarily and log in using the Plasma (x11) mode then update the kernel, that should allow you to access it properly. Most of our tests didn't require disabling the holoiso sessions as it was always able to boot in the failsafe kernel.

@RSDNTWK yeah I think even I fixed it, it just goes back to the previous terminal cursor not blinking, same as the ssd, BUT like every 5s it blinks

and again, I booted back, to the disabled session to show the sddm login, and yet, it shows clearly that it is USING the RIGHT VERSION!!

[RSDNTWK]

@Omarplayz233 Apologies for the late reply. 6.10 usually worked for us after installing it after using the failsafe mode. by the looks of things sddm now works.

[amysteriousdude]

@RSDNTWK did y'all use the AMD GPUs/CPUs?

[RSDNTWK]

@Omarplayz233 We use a combination of a Framework laptop 16 with a Ryzen 9 7940HS with an RX 7700S Discreet GPU, A Valve Steam Deck 1TB OLED and a pc with an Intel i9 10900k with an RTX 2080TI for testing.